[sdiy] Moogey jitter - the old times were the oldest.

[Scott Gravenhorst]

Grant Richter <grichter at asapnet.net> wrote:
>People don't have the time or money to learn how to play new designs.

Yes.  Some of that is due to an utter lack of any sort of standard, each one looks
really cool (selling point I guess) but is also completely unsimilar to any others. 
Acoustic instruments sort of enforce their own standard, I mean a guitar is a guitar
is a guiter, to the point that a guitar player can play a uke or a mandolin with a
small bit of practice.  When faced with a new synth, I will certainly agree that the
first thing I have to do is "waste" several hours in the manual.  

I don't have the kind of money or the trading skill to keep changing instruments
often, so I've been playing the same 5 synths for years.  I do find interesting uses
I've never heard before, but this does require some reasonable understanding of how
the instrument works.  Swapping out synths for others doesn't allow this kind of
understanding at the programming level.  I will also say that (and I understand that
not everyone can, will or even desires to do this) writing a patch editor for a D-110
made a HUGE difference in what I know about that synth.

>I talked about new synthesizers with Del Dettmar.
>He said "I'm still learning how to play the Synthi I got 30 years ago".

I don't know if I can relate, but I certainly understand this statement.

>The problem is a lack of virtuousity with synthesizers in general.
>Specially if you keep changing instruments.

Yes, you can tell you suck at an acoustic instrument right away I think.  That's why
I don't play percussion - I suck.  I need to understand how an electronic instrument
works before I can really use it, both for music making and for programming.  YMMV.

>People "cherry pick" the sounds they can get quickly, then move on to  
>some new gear / plugin / softsynth.
>
>They don't really ever learn how to play well, like you would an  
>acoustic instrument.

I think this is key.  There may be potential in instruments we already posess that
remains untapped because we don't have the time to devote to learning it.

>People devote their whole lives to acoustic instruments.

Yes, I play guitar (usually acoustic, BTW), so I understand this too.

>One reason is that synthesizers interfaces are still relatively crude.

Yep.

I will not abate my breath waiting for someone to invent the ultimate human to synth
interface.  The whole idea of any business venture is to remain in business and a
truly proper display, IMHO is probably expensive.  One of the things that sucks the
most about digital synths and programming them is the 1 or 2 line display.  Ok, my
WaveStation has a bigger display, but it's still not a good enough interface for fast
easy programming.  This was the reason I wrote my D-110 tone editor, I would like to
write one for my WaveStation too.  My D-110 editor isn't even fully graphical, yet
after I wrote it (and I'll admit that I wrote it for me) I actually wrote many new
sounds for the synth.  So I agree, the interface is a whole lot of it and I don't
think any digital synth of any significant value can be effectively programmed
without a full screen display (80x25 characters) that can present all of the
parameter values of a sound at once.

>Another is people view synthesizers as disposable technology and not  
>instruments.

I wish I had money like that... (c;

>If you get a new toaster, you throw out your old toaster.
>But if you get a Telecaster, you don't throw out your Stratocaster  
>(usually).

On the other hand, I had a Univox Les Paul copy that got sold almost the same day I
got a real one.  And it was a good guitar.

>
>> And this is probably what bugs Paul: while the 70s, 80s, and partly  
>> 90s
>> were the era of exploring new synthesis concepts ( i.e. inventing new
>> instruments) we nowadays somewhat stagnate in trying to reproduce "the
>> good old sound" instead of going back hunting for that new, unheard
>> sound/synthesis.

I can't relate much here, I couldn't possibly care less about trying to make a sound
that some pop hit had or "the Moog sound", whatever that is.  In fact, I have a funny
remark about that, I have a musician friend who I play with often.  The other day, I
was playing a piece via MIDI sequencer that uses one of my FatMan synths as it's most
prominent sound.  His comment was (about the FatMan), "You know, that thing sounds
very Moogy".  So there., a goddam PAiA FatMan.   Please no flames, this is an
_anecdote_, true enough.  However, I did have to agree with him...


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-- Scott Gravenhorst | LegoManiac / Lego Trains / RIS 1.5
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